Blink
by M. Marchand
Summary: Charlie experiences a life changing event and has to find his way back.
1. Chapter 1

Acknowledgements:  
Omi as always  
Kim for somehow managing to beta despite a hospital stay  
Becky for pushing me to make the fic better  
Lee Ann for convincing me it was good  
And all the BTN Live Open Beta participants - a huge thank you! 

Disclaimers:  
"A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend" - Willow, Buffy the Vampire Slayer  
I do not own the characters Charlie, Don, Alan, or Amita nor do I have  
any rights to anything related to the TV show Numb3rs. I plead fair  
use and claim only my own writing and characters.

* * *

Chapter One:

Time has a mathematical precision. Every human being gets sixty seconds per minute. A person simply can't lose time.

Charlie ponders this as he stares up at the ceiling of his classroom, wondering what happened to the time between when he was addressing his class and now.

He blinks and is startled to open his eyes to a crowd of students staring down at him. They couldn't have all moved in that split second it took to blink, could they?

He's their teacher... He should be doing something, telling them something... But Charlie can't make that connection. He manages to open his mouth but there's just nothing...

He blinks again and is disoriented when he opens his eyes and finds himself somewhere else. There's movement and a man in a uniform is hovering over him. An ambulance... That's good, he thinks, someone called an ambulance.

When he opens his eyes next, there's a woman hovering over him. She's in a white coat. There's no movement. Emergency room...

Time seems to have no meaning now... Life is reduced to flashes of images, not much more than snapshots in time. Seen once, they tell their story then are put aside in favor of the next in line.

He struggles not to close his eyes, not wanting to miss more time, but it's a fight he can't win. Each blink steals more of his precious minutes away. Minutes of his life he'll never get back.

The darkness between is longer now. What he sees when he next opens his eyes shocks and confuses him.

He's in a room, in a bed, a hospital bed. This is not surprising, but what he sees in the room is.

Don, his brother, has his arms around Amita. How could he do that? Don knows how much Amita means to him.

It takes him a moment to realize their embrace is not romantic. He's consoling her. She is crying into his chest and as his brother turns slightly, he can see the tears on his face as well.

Don is crying, he thinks, this must be bad... He's worried now and wants to call out to them to tell them that he'll be okay.

And then he blinks.


	2. Chapter 2

Blink 2/7

* * *

Chapter Two:

When Charlie opens his eyes, he's not too surprised that the room looks different from the last one he saw. Pretty much every blink has been a new scene at this point. But he feels different... better... rested even...

This room isn't white. It doesn't even look like a hospital, with blue painted walls and framed pictures for decoration. The IV beside his bed tells him he's still in a medical facility though, just not the same one.

He struggles to sit up, but his body doesn't respond properly. It's sluggish and awkward, like he weighs a ton.

He looks for a nurse call button but there isn't one, which seems odd to him. He waits for someone to come along, wondering where his brother and father are. If he's in the hospital, shouldn't they be there with him? Don and Amita were here last time...

A nurse walks in, reading from a clipboard. When she looks up and sees Charlie looking back at her, she's startled and almost drops it.

"Mr. Eppes!"

Dr. Eppes, Charlie wants to correct her, but the words don't come. He tries again, but they're just not there. He's confused and more than a little frightened, and his face must show it, since the nurse comes over and speaks softly to him.

"Mr. Eppes, you're probably disoriented but that's all right. You've been in a coma for a while. Just rest for now. I'll notify your doctor and call your family to let them know you're awake, okay?"

He manages to nod and she pats his arm gently before rushing from the room.

A coma... A while... Charlie lies back, still absorbing the magnitude of what she said. He's afraid to consider just how many minutes he might have lost...


	3. Chapter 3

Blink 3/7

* * *

Chapter Three:

Don arrives first, running practically full speed into the room. He's almost out of breath, as if he ran all the way from the Bureau. He's crying and laughing and talking and hugging Charlie so hard he can hardly breathe.

His words are a whirlwind and Charlie wants to join in, but can't seem to manage it. This part of him, this part he's always relied on, it just isn't there any more.

When Don finally pulls away from embracing him, Charlie looks at his brother. In his mind, he saw Don last a few seconds before he woke up, but he looks different now... older, more worn around the edges. Frustrated at his inability to communicate, he motions to Don for something to write on. When Don looks at him questioningly, he points to his mouth and shakes his head to remind him he can't talk.

Don tries to hide it, but his reaction is strong and emotional. Apparently, no one had told him yet that Charlie couldn't speak. Shaken, he pulls out his notebook and places a pen in Charlie's hand.

Charlie is relieved beyond belief that he can still write. He scribbles out "how long?"

Don reads it, frowns, and tries to dismiss it.

"Doesn't matter, buddy, I'm just so glad to have you back! Dad's on his way, he'll be here soon. You have no idea how happy he's going to be!"

Charlie taps the paper again, impatiently. He has a right to know.

Before he can coerce Don into answering, Alan bursts through the door and stares at Charlie in disbelief and joy.

Charlie stares at him in disbelief as well. When did his father get so gray? His hair was much darker when he saw him last. Like Don, he looks older as well and more weary than ever before.

He accepts his father's repeated embraces and listens to him go on about how happy he is. But Charlie can't stop thinking about time and how much he's lost.

When Alan finally pulls away, Charlie turns back to Don and taps the notebook again in a gesture of annoyance.

When Alan looks quizzically at Charlie and then at Don, Don sighs. "Dad... Charlie... He can't speak. Not yet anyway..."

Alan takes the news surprisingly well for a parent and just seems happy to have Charlie awake again.

Charlie is getting agitated and won't let Don put him off any longer. He uses whatever muscle strength he has left to throw the notebook at Don. Don catches it easily, since Charlie can barely lift his arm.

"Hey... It's okay, buddy... I just thought you might need some time to get used to the idea of being back before we hit you with, well, with what you've missed."

Charlie makes an exasperated face at his brother. More wasted time is the last thing he needs.

Don sits down beside him on the bed and takes his hand.

"Charlie... I don't know what they've told you so far, but you had a stroke during one of your classes and were taken to the hospital. You were in and out for a while but... you ended up in a coma. When you didn't wake up after a week or so... we moved you here, to this long term care facility."

Long term care... Charlie freezes up at what that implies.

"Charlie, you've been gone for seven months."


	4. Chapter 4

Blink 4/7

* * *

Chapter Four:

Charlie's recovery is slow and painful in many ways.

While the physical therapy for his atrophied muscles is hard, what's harder to face is the total lack of progress in speech therapy.

Hardest still is learning about all that he had missed while he was gone.

Larry and Laurel had gotten engaged and were working towards adoption.

Amita had gotten her doctorate and started teaching at Cal Sci, even taking over a couple of his classes while he was gone.

Don and Terry had started seeing each other again and even though Don never said anything about it, Charlie wonders if perhaps his coma might have been the crisis that drove Don to seek her out again as something more than a partner.

Alan, grieving too deeply for the loss of both his wife and son, had stopped dating entirely. No one would tell Charlie why his father looked so much older, however Larry had hinted that neither Eppes had fared well in the health department while he was gone. Larry would say no more and both Don and his father flatly denied any problems, their silence frustrating Charlie greatly.

Newspapers are filled with references that are foreign to him. Every song on the radio seems new. Even the math world moved on without him, including Cal Sci.

Charlie feels lost, adrift, out of time. He wants his old life back. So he works hard and fights down his frustration and despair after every fruitless speech therapy session.


	5. Chapter 5

Blink 5/7

* * *

Chapter Five:

His homecoming is bittersweet. He's glad to be crossing the threshold of his family home again, but things look different. Familiar things that have been moved to new places even throw him off. He desperately wants to move them back to where he thinks they belong but chokes back that response and tries to embrace the way things are now instead.

He settles in to one of the wonderful old Stickley chairs and feels at home again, almost like his old self, until his father asks him if he feels like having something to eat. It feels odd to have to answer him in sign language. Though his genius, which apparently hadn't been affected by the stroke, made it easier for him to quickly learn sign language, his father and brother are still struggling to learn enough to understand him.

Amita, however, has thrown herself completely into that particular pursuit. She, more than anyone, has become someone he can really talk to. She seems different to him now though, more confident, less tentative. They can talk now as peers instead of as teacher and student, and Charlie finds he likes this new dynamic. She went out of her way to gather sign language reference materials that focused on math concepts so Charlie could communicate in his own preferred language in addition to his regular English signing. Both knew it would be a long time before he could work again, but she knew he'd be frustrated having to fingerspell all the math terms to her.

Charlie sits and stares out into the backyard. His father had wisely quashed Don's idea for a homecoming celebration, somehow knowing this would be a transition easier made quietly, on his own.

Still, Charlie feels a little flurry of happiness inside when his father announces Amita is there to see him. He smiles and embraces her as normal, but for some reason feels particularly glad to see her.

"I think I got you another P vs. NP convert today!" she signs and speaks simultaneously, knowing her signing will both help Charlie to learn quicker and make him feel more comfortable in conversation.

Student? Charlie signs.

Amita sits down on the edge of the coffee table in front of him and signs the word yes back. "He's fascinated with it. I think he's after the Clay prize."

Unable to laugh, Charlie simply flashes her a huge smile. Not if I win it first, he signs back.

"Mail call!" Alan's voice rings out as he walks back in the house. "Special delivery for Dr. Charles Eppes," he jokes, dropping a large envelope into Charlie's lap.

Charlie signs thank you and his father says, "you're welcome!" as he walks off and leaves the two of them alone.

The envelope really is special. The creamy ivory paper is heavy and expensive and the front is addressed in calligraphy to Dr. Charles Eppes.

He opens it and pulls out the contents, recognizing it immediately for what it is: a wedding invitation.

'Dr. Lawrence Fleinhardt and Dr. Laurel Wilson request the honor of your presence...'

The honor of his presence... Charlie is happy to be around at all for the ceremony. He's missed so much in the last seven months... He'd have been devastated if he'd missed such an important event in his best friend's life.

The reply card lists a spot for him to RSVP and to say if he will be bringing a guest. A date...

He looks up at Amita. "I got mine yesterday," she signs and says.

He nods and looks at her again, more closely this time. Their relationship has been so different since he woke up. She'd had months to get used to the fact that he was no longer her thesis advisor. He's had a little trouble adjusting to the new version of Amita as colleague instead of student. One thing hasn't changed though and that's how he feels about her deep inside. What have changed are the rules that previously kept them apart.

Larry had hinted that Amita had been devastated by his stroke, more than one would expect from a student. She had been a regular presence during his rehabilitation, visiting almost as often as Don had. Charlie finally began to see that she wasn't doing it because she felt bad that he was disabled. She'd really wanted to be with him.

He holds up the response card so she can see the RSVP portion.

"Yeah, I've got to send mine in," she says. "I'm bad about that, I'm sure I'll forget."

Charlie pulls a pen from his pocket and writes the number one and a question mark in the number of guests column and shows it to her again.

"You're asking me if you can bring a guest?" she says, looking confused and perhaps a bit crestfallen. "I'm sure Larry wouldn't mind."

Charlie shakes his head and points at her.

"Oh, you want us to go together! Sure, put 'plus one' down and I'll let Laurel know that counts as my RSVP since I'll forget to send mine in."

Flustered, Charlie shakes his head again and, not knowing the sign for the word he wants to say, he fingerspells the letters A-S M-Y D-A-T-E.

For a moment, he can't read her expression, and he wonders if he's crossed a line that wasn't meant to be crossed. She looks down for a few seconds, hiding her face behind the curtain of dark wavy hair Charlie had wanted to touch so many times when they worked together before. When she looks back up, she's smiling. "I thought you'd never ask," is her reply. Her smile mirrors Charlie's until she nervously looks away, feeling shy under his gaze.

Charlie reaches out and slides his fingers gently through her hair, encouraging her to come closer. She kneels in front of him, laying her hands on his knees as he smoothes her hair and caresses her face.

He senses that she needs to say something, and he encourages her with a glance that she reads perfectly.

"Charlie, when I found out..." Her face darkens and her eyes begin to fill with tears. "I cried so hard, I just couldn't stop."

I know, he signs. I saw you.

"Charlie, that's not possible. You were unconscious for seven months."

Not at first, he signs. Not looking forward to the amount of fingerspelling he'd need to do to communicate all that he wants to say, he pulls out his notepad and quickly writes, "saw classroom, saw students, saw paramedic, saw doctor, saw..." He stops at that point, sobering as he remembers the last thing he had seen before his old life came to an end.

He pauses for a moment then signs the rest. I saw you crying in Don's arms. I saw Don crying. That's the last thing I saw.

Amita can't hold back her tears any longer. "Neither of us could bear losing you, Charlie. We were both so lost... There was nothing that could console us, not even each other. We just both cried until we couldn't cry anymore."

Charlie feels her sadness and his own for having put those he loves through such grief. Having suffered through his mother's lengthy illness he can imagine how much worse it was for them to not even be able to talk with him as he could with his mother. To suddenly be told you could never speak with your loved one again... It seemed almost too painful to bear and yet they'd had to for the better part of a year. Even though Charlie couldn't speak himself now that hadn't stopped him from telling Don and his father how much he loved them his first day back.

He takes a deep breath and decides it's time to put the past behind him and do what he can with the life he's been given a second chance at.

Over now, he signs. Time to move forward.

"You're right," she says, looking up at him with a smile and wiping her eyes briefly. "Time to move forward."

Charlie draws closer to her and slips his hand behind her neck, leaning down as she rises to meet him in a kiss, warm and sweet and full of promise.

"We don't need words for this, do we?" she whispers, bringing her lips to his again.


	6. Chapter 6

Blink 6/7

* * *

Chapter Six:

The wedding is beautiful.

Charlie, so proud and happy to be able to show Amita off as his own, keeps his arm around her or holds her hand almost the whole day. They even dance a little, joining Larry and Laurel long enough to swap partners for a minute.

The best part of the event for Charlie comes at the end of the day. Despite having to be pushed out onto the dance floor for the bouquet toss, Amita catches it when it comes right at her.

Seeing her shocked expression, Charlie laughs.

After months of silence in his head, the sound reverberates and slightly startles him. He is so happy to have made a sound at all that he rushes out to Amita and kisses her in front of everyone.

Overwhelmed and a little embarrassed because of the circumstances, she pulls away from him. "Charlie!"

"Amita," he says back to her. She is speechless for a second, and then launches into his arms with an ecstatic squeal. His first word and it's her name.

He holds her tightly in his arms and spins her around out of pure joy. It's the last hurdle; the last obstacle to getting his life back and it's been cleared.


	7. Chapter 7

Blink 7/7

* * *

Chapter Seven:

To a mathematician, words are less important than numbers.

To a teacher, words are the lifeblood of their existence.

Charlie has to work to get the words back. The numbers never left him.

He sees specialist after specialist and spends hours in speech therapy. Amita drills him and he pushes himself constantly despite the possibility he may never regain the full faculty he once took for granted.

However, to teach again means to speak. While the university is more than willing to bring him back with an interpreter, Charlie knows he needs his hands for other things when he's teaching.

He practices teaching classes to Amita, who encourages him and tells him it's okay to resort to writing the words he has trouble with. He starts consulting at the Bureau again where Don can read his sign language if he has trouble with a few phrases. He updates an old seminar he taught on P vs. NP and teaches it to Amita's students for practice. Finally, he presents himself back at Cal Sci and tells them he'd like to end his medical leave and resume his teaching schedule. They agree, but suggest that Amita stay on to assist him until the end of the semester when she'll be assigned her own classes to teach. Except this time she'll be his co-instructor, not his teacher's assistant.

A date is chosen for his return.

Aware of how awkward it will be stepping into courses already in session, he spends hours reviewing lesson plans and student histories with Amita. He knows he won't recognize them, so they agree that grading exams will fall to her.

Always a confident teacher in the past, Charlie suddenly experiences anxiety over his abilities and wonders if he can really do this. Amita assures him he'll be as wonderful as he ever was, but Charlie agonizes over his lecture topics, how best to approach them, how best to present himself to students who are as new to him as he is to them.

He steps onto the campus that morning, Amita by his side, and instead of it feeling foreign - a place he's barely seen in the last year - it feels like home. Being back where he belongs erases any doubts he might have had about his readiness to return or his place there among the faculty.

Walking up the steps to his building, some former students recognize him and wave. He happily greets them, still oddly thrilled to hear his own voice coming out of his throat.

He stands with Amita at the front of the classroom as the students file in. He watches them for a while then, remembering, looks up at the ceiling. He remembers that view, that odd perspective on the room he'd once spent so much time in and then been away from for so long...

He turns his gaze back to Amita as she addresses the students. So capable and confident, he wishes he could just watch her teach. But that's not what he's here for.

"So, as I mentioned at the start of the course, I have only been filling in until Professor Eppes returned. We'll be teaching this class together until the end of the semester, so please feel free to approach either of us with questions from this point on. Professor Eppes is an excellent instructor and I'm certain you will all learn a great deal from him. I assure you that you will enjoy the process as well."

Amita turns to him and gives him an encouraging smile. "Charlie?" She backs away and cedes center stage to him.

Charlie walks to the front of the class, and stands looking out at them for a moment. He sees their expectant faces and feels a thrill at the prospect of filling their waiting minds with wonder. This is why he went into teaching. This is what makes all his rehabilitation efforts worthwhile.

"No sense wasting precious time. I'm Professor Eppes. Let's get started, shall we?"


End file.
